Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today – what you do means nothing, be the best in the class, it’s all rubbish because it’s all heart.
Matthew 15:8-9 NLT
[8] ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [9] Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.'”
Observation
It’s all heart. We focus on the outside, God is only interested in the inside. We focus on behaviour we can see and then judge worthiness. God focuses on the heart and sees love or disinterest. We know how to say ‘the right things,’ but God sees deeper than the words we breathe, he hears the meditations of my heart. It’s a joke really.
Man makes rules so they can judge behaviour and then they honour their rules and those who behave, and claim to have the ‘tick of approval of God. When all the time God has no focus on behaviour as a means of honouring him. We give out prizes for well done and he looks exclusively at my heart. What a farce really.
Here is why we cannot judge each other, we do not see the heart. But we love judgement, we love the power, the confidence, the security that comes from being able to judge, and being judged. We love to know that based on self we have made it into the right books with God. But you can’t judge, you don’t know my heart. You have no power over me, and I have no confidence in me, my performance. It’s all heart. And only I and God know my heart.
Application
I won’t live the farce anymore. I will not look at your performance based on my tribe’s rules and pass judgement as to your rightness and God’s approval of you. I will see this for the ridiculous farce it is. I will ask myself one question – where is my heart? I can’t fake this answer and God already knows it. I can’t fake it, I can’t arouse it, I can’t make it with self-effort. My heart’s love response to God is only possible when I have been loved by God. And this is all that God desires of me. So I will kill off all the man-made ideas and commands for they are a distraction and a murderer of all that matters to God.
Response
Thank you that you look at my heart. Thank you that you search out my heart. Thank you that you love my heart to life in you, to love you. Thank you that you don’t rate performance you listen to your heart. Thank you that you call it a farce when I try and earn my way into what can only be received as a gift – your love. I love the life of love.
Meditation
Consider:
Is your confidence in your adherence and following of man-made ideas and commands?
Do you love God?
JOURNEY DEEPER